


sometimes (life can be deceiving)

by lovelyflowersinherhair



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyflowersinherhair/pseuds/lovelyflowersinherhair
Summary: “It’s not like they’ve said anything about you sneaking into my bed.”





	sometimes (life can be deceiving)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).

“So, here we are,” Jughead said, and he gestured to the treehouse he had sequestered himself away in after Alice had essentially driven him from the house after her five millionth rant about how she didn’t understand why Elizabeth was marrying Archibald, surprised to have seen Veronica peek her head into his childhood safe space. “It’s not much, but my dad used to sleep here when my mom thought he was too drunk to be around us, so I suppose it’s sort of a home.” He chuckled. “Alice realized I was gone and decided to focus her attention on you?” 

Veronica laughed, and she climbed into the treehouse itself, and sat beside him. “Oh Veronica, I don’t understand why you and Archibald didn’t work out,” she said, her tone an approximation of Jughead’s stepmother. “Sure it was unideal when his father died and the reality of the complicity of his business and Lodge Industries came into play, but I just consider that to be some minor semantics.” 

“I pointed out that Betty and I didn’t consider the children that she and Dad kept popping out to be ‘minor semantics’,” Jughead informed her. “That wasn’t...quite the phrasing that I used, admittedly, but...I did my best to get my point across. I thought about telling her that you and I were dating, to be honest, but I didn’t--”   
  


“What do you think that they’d say?” Veronica asked, her eyes glinting with mirth. “God, I bet that my mom would drop dead.” Hermione had been released from prison after she had squealed like a damn pig, more than willing to desecrate the dead along with her ex-husband and practically everyone they had encountered over the course of their relationship. A particular bone of Hermione’s contention was that she was required to see FP monthly as a condition of her release. Jughead didn’t know what had annoyed the woman more -- being forced to report to his father, or the fact that she had had to become gainfully employed, in an actual job -- but she had returned to her role at Pop’s, and therefore Jughead renewed his commitment to avoiding the diner whenever he spotted her behind the counter. 

“I don’t know what they’d say,” Jughead admitted after a moment of thought. “It’s not like they’ve said anything about you sneaking into my bed.” 

He and Veronica had a ...thing going on, and Jughead was 90 percent sure that his father and Alice were entirely well aware of it existing, which made the fact that Alice kept trying to convince Betty and Veronica that they had made a mistake with their respective partners more than a bit galling. It was true that Alice had long standing issues with Archie, but it wasn’t as if Betty wasn’t her own person who was capable of her own thoughts. 

And Fred’s death had matured Archie. 

Though he had finished out the school year in Riverdale, Mary had decided that it would be best for Archie to come to Chicago with her after graduation, and regroup away from the small town gossip that had been following him for the majority of his formative years. 

Jughead was impressed at the transformation that he had seen in his friend, and he suspected that Alice would have been too, had her distrust and fear of Archie not been deeply (and Jughead felt unfairly) routed in her feelings of inadequacy that had started growing up on the Southside of town and had been stoked fervently throughout her marriage to Betty’s father, not that Alice would ever so much as admit that. 

“Maybe we’ve been too subtle,” she said with a pout, as she leaned against him. “You know, we are talking about Sheriff FP ‘Incorrect Serpent Facts’ Jones and Alice ‘The Post Would Call Me Sensationalist’ Jones. They probably need a big showy display. We could send them a snake!”

“Ronnie,” Jughead said. “Snakes are warnings. Dad would probably think that we had bought him a pet.”

“We could send my mom a snake,” she tittered. “I’d want to be there when she got it.” 

“Are you saying that you want to be official?” He asked, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. “You’re comfortable with that now?” 

Veronica had always been insistent that whatever their relationship consisted of, they were not ever going to be officially dating. She was of the opinion that it would be strange for people to see that the Sheriff’s son was dating the daughter of the town of Riverdale’s most notorious criminal (Jughead’s protests that he was fairly certain that his stepmother had been  _ married _ to Riverdale’s most notorious criminal, which took Hermione Lodge out of the running for that honor, had been met with deaf ears, and he had finally dropped the subject when Veronica had started to cry) and the fact that he didn’t care had met very little to her. Jughead knew what it was like to be ashamed of ones family. He knew what Veronica was going through, even though his dad had done absolutely nothing like the Lodges had done, and he hadn’t pressed her to go public with whatever they had. If all she wanted to be seen as was best friends? Or fuck buddies? Jughead would take what he could get. 

“I don’t see why not,” she said, her tone regal. Gone were the pearls and the little black dresses, but some aspects of Veronica’s pedigree and training were still evident. “I’m tired of pandering to what others might think,” she continued. “My mother and father will never be happy about this,” she warned. “But I’m my own person, Jughead. I can handle it.” 

“The only people I cared about upsetting were Archie and Betty,” he told her. “And they know, and neither of them even care. Betty just wants me to be happy.” 

“It’s not like we dumped them and fell into bed with each other,” she added. “That would be hideously inappropriate.” 

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Jughead Jones. And I don’t care who knows it.”


End file.
